the tops of the mountains in my little boat, I met two men on horseback
riding on one mare: So I asked them, "Could they tell me whether the
little old woman was dead yet who was hanged last Saturday week for
drowning herself in a shower of feathers?" They said they could not
positively inform me, but if I went to Sir Gammer Vans he could tell me
all about it. "But how am I to know the house?" said I. "Ho, 't is easy
enough," said they, "for 't is a brick house, built entirely of flints,
standing alone by itself in the middle of sixty or seventy others just
like it."

"Oh, nothing in the world is easier," said I.

"Nothing _can_ be easier," said they: so I went on my way.

Now this Sir G. Vans was a giant, and a bottle-maker. And as all giants
who _are_ bottle-makers usually pop out of a little thumb-bottle from
behind the door, so did Sir G. Vans.

"How d'ye do?" says he.

"Very well, I thank you," says I.

"Have some breakfast with me?"

"With all my heart," says I.

So he gave me a slice of beer, and a cup of cold veal; and there was a
little dog under the table that picked up all the crumbs.

"Hang him," says I.